


Roxy & I

by Broba



Category: Homestuck, Withnail & I (1986)
Genre: Drinking, Drug Use, Gen, Hangover, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus awakes to find himself cold and entirely without booze. Roxy is equally perplexed, and intends to do something about this shameful situation.</p>
<p>Kinkmeme prompt and I regret nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roxy & I

When Cronus finally awoke he immediately regretted each and every decision that had brought his life to this point. He was unable to face the unrelenting realness in front of him now and so he focussed on the past and re-lived better times. He had been upright, once. He had been capable of walking around, and he had even been able to think about eating something, maybe. That was all gone now- oh no, there would be no more of that. Now, all that he could manage was a low, croaking moan and to flop around like a beached sea-bass. He rolled over and stared into the infinite wonder of his bedroom ceiling. Cheap plaster moulding wavered and swam before him. On a logical level he knew that he was perfectly still and was doing his utmost not to move. On a personal, visceral level he was entirely aware that he was being tipped head-first down a sharp incline towards some fresh new hell. When he closed his eyes he could distinctly feel himself sliding backwards.  
  
“Vuh-We went too far this time,” he murmured, in a moment of clear apprehension, “we went too far.”  
“Are you there?” A shrill voice came from the communal room downstairs, “wake up!”  
“I can't!” Cronus whimpered, “we went too far! I'm goin' ta stay here. I'll jus' stay here in my bed and die slowly.”  
“Weak! That's fuckin' weakness!”  
  
Cronus groaned. He had said the wrong thing- and roused up the beast. There was never any telling what the right thing was, but it was always very quickly evident to him when he had said the wrong thing. He glanced over to his door just as Roxy burst into his room. She was wearing her overcoat against the cold autumn chill and a set of longjohns and a tee shirt under that.  
“Get out of bed!”  
“I can't get out of bed! I'm gonna die here!”  
“You're just hungover, stop being a shit about it.”  
“I'm not bein' a shit!” Cronus was whining now, “I'm being completely, and totally, I am... uh, I am telling the truth! This is death. This is what death is.”  
“You just need a little pick-me-up, that's all.” She sneered at him, revealing horrible teeth, “just the thing to warm you up.”  
“Why is it so fuckin' cold in here anyway?”  
“You didn't pay the gas bill this month-” she pointed at him dramatically, “you're the one who did this to us!”  
“I'm sorry Roxy, just... just let me sleep a little.”  
“No way! You need to get up. We have visitors.”  
“What? In here? In the house? Who's here?”  
“Gamzee,”  
“What's he doing here?”  
“I asked him to come over.”  
“Why did you ask him to come over? He's a drug person! Whenever he comes over he makes us do drug person things!”  
“That's a cruel thing to say, and it's not something you should ever accuse someone of.”  
“But he is absolutely a drug person!”  
“Exactly. And drug people always have a small but adequate supply of money and that's exactly what we need right now. Get out of bed!”  
“It's too cold, Roxy!”  
“When it's cold you should rub some Deep-Heat on yourself. I did. There's none left for you.”  
“You're so cruel!”  
“I warned you to get up! I distinctly shouted up the stairs. Now Gamzee is here, come on.”  
  
They made their way downstairs. Cronus was shivering fitfully and hugging a blanket around his shoulders. Roxy was struggling to get a cigarette lit. Her skin looked a sickly, jaundiced yellow except where the Deep-Heat cream stained it pure white.  
“I can't handle this Roxy, I'm warning you! This ain't right!”  
“Listen.” Roxy turned on his sharply, mid-stair, “I have some appalling news. We're out of wine. Something has to be done. This state of affairs cannot last, we simply must have more booze.”  
“Why can't you leave me alone?”  
“Gamzee is here. He likes you, he understands the way you talk about things. You have to get some money out of him, the only answer is to get more wine, do you see?”  
“Why don't you ask him?”  
“Because he's a complete prick!”  
“I don't see why I have to deal with this sort of thing. Not in my condition. Look at me! My thumbs have gone weird!”  
“Look, we'll get some gin alone with a nice Merlot to chase it down, and after a couple of Guinesses to round off the evening we'll be fine. We'll miss Monday, but we'll come up smiling on Tuesday. It's a perfect answer to all our problems!”  
“What if Gamzee won't give me anything?”  
Roxy glared down the stairs, then back up at Cronus.  
“Then the fucker will rue the day!”  
  
They piled downstairs together to their shabby living room, such as it was. The room was gaudily decorated with posters and scribbled writings on the walls, disguising the peeling and moist ancient wallpaper beneath. The carpet was a menagerie of horrors that tessellated nicely in a chintz pattern. Upon their elderly couch reclined Gamzee, who inclined his head quizzically at them as they came in and tried to stay erect. He had on a pair of black wrap-around shades, and so he expressed himself entirely through his lips and eyebrows.  
“Awright, man,” he drawled, “nice to see you up and about. I was afraid you was gone for good.”  
Roxy sneered at him. “Don't worry, we can take our drink.”  
“Yesh,” Cronus whimpered, “but it's been a very difficult night, so be gentle.”  
“Relax, man,” Gamzee grinned, “no need to be all up tight.”  
“He's got something to ask you.” Roxy sniffed, “I'm going to make a cup of tea.”  
  
Cronus gasped and leapt halfway across the room, tackling Roxy before she could move through the open entryway to their rancid kitchen.  
“What are you doing? You can't go in there, the sink has gone all wrong!”  
“Balls!” Roxy sneered, “I'll clean up. I'll get a cup. I'll make the tea.”  
“You're insane, you can't,” Cronus now had the urgency of the committed drunkard, he was utterly possessed of his beliefs, “I looked into it last night, there's absolutely no way. Things are... growing... in there. We can tackle it together! In the morning!”  
“It is the morning! Unhand me!” Roxy shook him off, “I'll be back. Why don't you have a little conversation with our friend here, hmmmm?”  
  
Cronus turned back to Gamzee, who was grinning at him horribly, as Roxy departed to do battle with spatula and soap against the horrors of the sink.  
“What's the matter with her,” Gamzee opined, “why's she all up tight?”  
“She's just had a rough night. We all have. Both of us, I mean.”  
“You need a little pick-me-up. You need a little bit of medicine.”  
“I don't, I promise you, I don't need your medicine.”  
“Relax, man. I have got what is good for you.”  
  
Gamzee reached behind him, to where he had stashed a plastic dolly in the gap between cushions in the couch. It was a horrible thing, with unmentionables braided in its' hair and a fixed plastic smirk.  
  
“What's that?”  
“This,” observed Gamzee, “is a very dangerous doll. It has voodoo qualities.”  
He snapped the head off the doll, and dispensed from the hollow pink orb a single pill into his palm.  He held it up between finger and thumb for Cronus to see.  
“What's that?”  
“Trade: Phenodihydrochloride-benzolex. Street: The Embalmer.”  
“I,” Cronus stuttered, unable to complete a reasonable sentence that was acceptable to normal people, “I don't think I can. I can't, in fact, I know I can't. I'm unwell. I'm definitely entering the arena of the unwell.”  
“You,” pronounced Gamzee, “are becoming up tight, man. It is probably on account of that tight hair style of yours.”  
“My hair?”  
“Of course. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into your brain. That is why bald-headed men are up tight.”  
“I'd never thought about it like that,”  
“Few ever do, man. Few ever do. At this moment I feel the best thing is to light up a joint and discuss matters further. Have you got a match?”  
  
From the kitchen, Roxy shouted out amid the clash of horrible crockery, “he doesn't have a match you strung-out shit! We need booze! We need wines, and some gin!”  
“That,” said Gamzee, “is a perfect an' exact example of the kind of up tightness I have been talkin' about. Listen, while I'm here, I wonder if I could borrow some coin, man?”  
Roxy appeared, storming into the lounge, “you absolute shit,” she pronounced, “you're just a drug  person!”  
“That's an un-called for thing to say, man. You want to watch out for yourself.”  
“You're a drug person,” sneered Roxy, pulling off the single rubber glove she had managed to procure as defence against the kitchen, “and what's more, you can fuck off with your bullshit pill and potions, go on!”  
  
Gamzee slowly removed his shades, staring up at Roxy with minuscule pupils drawn in tight by an extended period of better living through chemicals.  
“Those are dangerous words, man. I might have to spike you. And if I spike you, you'll know you've been spoken to.”  
“Balls!” Roxy snorted, “I can take anything you've got and run a mile!”  
Cronus interjected weakly, “shut up, look at him! His mechanism's gone!”  
“Balls!” Roxy repeated.  
  
They were spiked. When Cronus woke up again he realised, fully and truly, that he had been spoken to. He pulled himself upright awkwardly and looked around him. He was in the back of Roxy's shabby old Jaguar. Outside the windows grey strips of asphalt stretched away to infinity. He looked over, and saw that Roxy was driving.  
“What's happening?”  
“Awake, are you? About time, I was starting to think I'd have to throw you into a ditch.”  
“You wouldn't!”  
“Eh, I know. I always look after you don't I?”  
“Thank you, Roxy.”  
“By the way, you owe Gamzee six pounds for the pills.”  
“I don't have six pounds!”  
“Gamzee will be upset,”  
“Roxy!”  
She just smirked and pressed down the accelerator. It was at that moment that Cronus realised jut how fast they were going.  
“Wait a minute, what's happening? Pull over! Stop this car!”  
“No,” said Roxy, “I'm making time.”  
  



End file.
